A Beacon of Hope
by Iris Johanne Black
Summary: Selenia flowers lead lost travelers from their lost worlds back to the present reality. They are a beacon for those who have lost their way; they are the hope that some people search desperately for for their whole lives.


_**A/N:**_ I wanted to do a one-shot of Asch's return to Auldrant at the end of the game, and so…I let the notion take over. I don't particularly mind if it isn't in character, because the fic wouldn't leave my mind until I typed it. So, I decided to type it.

_**Edit:**_ Is anyone else, when they upload documents, experiencing a repetition of the first line at the very top of the document when it is posted? It's happened quite a few times for me already. Just curious!

_**Disclaimer: **_ I do not own Tales of the Abyss. If I did, then I probably wouldn't be writing fanfiction for it (which is probably a lie, but oh well).

**The Beacon of Hope**

A field of Selenia flowers stretches like a sea before any observer, their glowing petals blinking with a soft light to guide lost travelers back home. Travelers lost at sea for reasons unknown could sometimes see the flowers in the distance during the impending threat of darkness. The petals act as a beacon for those who have misplaced themselves, perhaps not visible right away, but it gives them a path to follow amidst the void of darkness.

As they had so many times in the past, the flowers acted as a beacon for another traveler looking to find his way. They paved his road back to the land of reality, as if they were a flight of stairs stretching to the sky to carry him home.

Home.

The traveler paused in the midst of the glowing flowers, staring up at the star-ridden sky as the stars blinked down at him. The word felt foreign in the traveler's mind. He hadn't had a real "home" in perhaps over ten years; and yet, now here he was standing alone amongst the sea of flowers that promised his safe return.

The wind picked up, the soft whisper of a laugh faintly recognizable in the breeze. The hair on the back of the traveler's neck rose as a chill raced down his spine, meanwhile the breeze tossing his dark crimson hair to and fro as if playing with it. Looking back across the ocean of flickering petals, the hesitant traveler took a cautious step forward and deliberated back and forth between the current moment truly being a part of reality or a farfetched dream that seemed undeniably real.

No, the whisper in the wind informed him that this, indeed, was reality. And, as that weary traveler took another less-cautious step forward, he, too, knew that he could learn to leave the bitter past behind. Each step forward carried off another shard of sheer pain, agony that had piled upon his shoulders so much in the past that he had forgotten how uplifting it was to feel the weight lift from his shoulders.

Perhaps he could learn what it felt like to care for someone again. It would take time, and everyone would be distant at first. Natalia's cheerful face glistening with tears of joy at his return flared to life within his riddled mind, blowing away all of the worries he previously held before. His shoulders relaxed for the first time in years, stiff from upholding the stress comparable to that of several lifetimes. If he could just see Natalia again…If he really could rule _their _country like he had promised…

And it was for that very reason why he could not hate the replica he had been trying to despise for so long. He tried so desperately to cling to that bitter hatred that only seemed so logical at the time, but the moment the dreck gave up his life for him was the moment the frail hatred he had tried so hard to maintain cracked and shattered to countless shards.

The traveler knew that he could never truly return to the life he previously owned, but old wounds could potentially scar over even if they would never heal fully. He could do what he had always done in the past, however, and work towards the future that people could now pave for themselves. He could become a king worthy of the country of Kimlasca…if Natalia was still willing to work with him.

"_You'll be a great king, Asch."_

The soft voice whispered delicately into his ear and raised the hairs on the back of Asch's neck once more but as he jerked his head around to locate the person the voice unmistakably belonged to all he found was the flurry dance of the Selenia petals raising with the uplifting breeze. For just a split second, he could have sworn he had seen the replica smiling at him from a ways off, but surely that had just been a trick of the petals on his vision.

His face flushed with the foolishness that had graced his thoughts for the few milliseconds it took for him to spin around fully. There was no one there; of course there wouldn't be. It would have been a childish prank that would most certainly invoked Asch's irritation if he really had been there smiling at him; but, though the whisper itself had seemed real enough, he knew that only one of them could live…and his replica had made his choice.

So, he decided that he could do one thing for the idiot. Asch could never become _Luke_ again. That in itself was an impossibility since _Luke_ really fit the description of the replica. The "light of the sacred flame" had fulfilled the prophecy pushed onto him, and he had survived the incident that foretold his death. No, _Luke_ could never describe Asch as it once had in the past, which was why he would let the name live on with the replica's memories.

As Asch turned forward once more, the faintest ghost of a smile graced his lips, vanishing before even he could admit to it having ever been there.

"You have my gratitude," Asch murmured, tacking on at the end as the thought whispered across his mind, "Luke."


End file.
